In Theralase Technologies Inc. v. Lanter, 2020 ONSC
205, the plaintiffs sued anonymous posters on a website called
Stockhouse.com ("Stockhouse") for publishing defamatory
content about them, including accusations of dishonesty and
criminal acts. The motion judge, Justice Myers, even describes one
post as "misogynistic" and "particularly
disgusting".
The plaintiffs first obtained a court order requiring Stockhouse
to turn-over the identities of the posters. Due to a technical
issue, the website was only able to provide email addresses for
most of the defendants, but not their names.
The plaintiffs then obtained an order for substituted service,
which allowed them to serve their statement of claim by email on
the email addresses supplied by Stockhouse. Only one of the
defendants responded. One email was returned as undeliverable and
the remaining defendants did not respond.
